


After

by orphan_account



Category: IT (1990), IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Bottom Eddie Kaspbrak, Coming Out, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier-centric, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Fluff, Gay Richie Tozier, Getting Together, IT Chapter Two Spoilers, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Mild Smut, Movie: IT Chapter Two (2019), Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie Tozier's Gay Panic, Sex, Slow Build, Tags Are Hard, Top Richie Tozier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2020-12-31 17:36:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21149573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: After the events of IT and Derry, Richie is left to deal with a lot of feelings.





	After

**Author's Note:**

> It took like 2 months but here we go, I guess.

Hospitals are the worst. Richie comes to that conclusion not three hours after walking through the front door. Well,_ walking_ may not be the right word. They all drag each other in through the reception. He has a faint memory of Beverly breaking away from them to rush at the nurses’ front desk, shouting something or other about their friend.

Richie swallows. Eddie. He remembers how limp he had felt against Richie’s side; slumped and with an arm thrown over the other’s shoulders. He isn’t entirely sure what happened after. Gloved hands took Eddie away, wheeling him into some other section of the hospital while the rest of them were ushered into exam rooms. Scrapes, cuts, and bruises. That’s all that was wrong with the rest of them. But he can only imagine what a scene they made for. Then again, strange things happen in Derry. And he’s sure that maybe nurses and doctors here maybe have seen worse.

Richie sits on the edge of a bed, hands clasped together on his lap, while he stares off into the distance. A nurse potters about the room, occasionally coming over to dab away some dried and crusted blood away from his temple and cheek. His cuts have long since stopped bleeding. After a twenty-minute check-over, she’s happy to discharge him. But he swallows a lump forming in his throat.

He worries his fingers together.

“Everything alright?” The nurse lifts a pencilled eyebrow. 

Richie shrugs a shoulder. “Yeah,” he rasps, but clears his throat. “Just wondering where my friends are, is all.”

The nurse’s face softens. “I can find out for you once we’re done here.”

Hospitals are the worst because they’re too clean and too bright and just too much. Bleach and disinfectant stings the inside of his nose. And the overhead fluorescent lights make him squint.

All of them are crammed into a small private room. The long strip of hallway must be an ICU of sorts. Derry never had the best of anything – including hospitals. It’s more of a doctor’s office with a chip on its shoulder.

But Eddie is in a bed that sits among machines, all beeping and ticking and making rhythmic noise that Richie finds some solace in. Beeps and ticks mean that he’s okay. Beverly and Ben are on a large, two-seater couch pushed to one wall of the room. Bill is slumped in an armchair to the corner; with Mike perched haphazardly on one arm, supporting himself against both the back of the chair and Bill’s side.

There’s a window that looks out on to a nearby section of forest. He supposes that with everything that they’ve gone through, looking out into the dark trees should be terrifying. It should raise the hairs on the back of his neck. But he glances out the window to see that the sun is starting its descent. And there isn’t a stupid, fucking clown among the tree trunks, staring back at him.

His attention is grabbed by the sound of movement. Richie turns back to the bed in time to see Eddie’s eyes blink open; only to squint back shut again at the harsh lights overhead.

Richie has taken up a bedside vigil. It’s all so movie-like; waiting patiently by a loved one’s bedside. It’s like he’s a soldier’s wife, waiting for him to wake up from shellshock. If he was in any other state of mind he would have probably laughed at himself. But not now. He scrambles to perch at the edge of his chair, pulling the thing closer to the side of the bed.

There’s a light dimmer on the plastic railing on the wall behind the headboard of the bed. Richie fiddles with it for a moment, adjusting the light overhead; trying not to turn it off, because I don’t think anyone would take being in the dark well at this stage. But Eddie seems to appreciate it. As Richie glances back down at the other man, he finds that his eyes have adjusted to the lighting.

“Thanks,” Eddie rasps. After a moment, he rolls his head towards Richie. A patch of bandages are clumped along his left cheek. After they had gotten to the hospital, Eddie had been torn away by what seemed to be an army of nurses and doctors. Even though they were all kept updated on how surgery was doing, Richie couldn’t help but wonder what the staff there would start thinking. It isn’t every day where Derry General Hospital sees six forty-somethings rushing in, one of them having two severe puncture wounds to his cheek and abdomen. The attending surgeon had met with the five of them after Eddie’s surgery wrapped up. While he was being induced into a coma, for some reason that Richie wasn’t entirely certain of, the surgeon had explained that he was lucky; _whatever had gone through your friend didn’t puncture anything significant. _The surgeon had this look in his eye. The kind of look that told them all that the police had been called, because whatever had happened to Eddie was going to have to be investigated.

And no amount of stories explaining that _oh, he fell_ would cut it.

But it’s earth-shattering. It’s like the tiles beneath his sneakers are going to dissolve from out from underneath him, and he’ll fall into darkness. Eddie, breathing, awake, and alert, is looking back at him.

_Not dead_.

Something flashes across Eddie’s face. “Hey,” he almost-mumbles, “everything alright?”

Richie nods. “Yeah. Well...” he blows out a harsh breath.

Something in Eddie’s eyes softens. Even through the haze of some herculean antibiotics that are coursing through his body, something is there.

“Eddie?”

Both of them glance over to the armchair pushed into the corner of the room. Bill rubs at his eyes for a second before trying to sit forward. “How long have you been awake?” Though he keeps his voice low, Bill’s movement jostles Mike awake. And like dominoes, Beverly and Ben follow.

Each of them wanders over to a side of Eddie’s bed.

Richie decides to let whatever was trying to crawl up his throat fall back in again. They trade conversation for a while: each of them pointedly avoiding what had happened in the caves. Instead, they talk about what their lives could be now. Richie wrings his fingers together.

After almost thirty minutes, Eddie’s eyelids droop closed again. A long, drawn-out sigh blows out through his nose. “Tired,” he manages to mumble. It’s quiet, but enough to stop Bev and Bill talking about how they were going to get out of some shitty marriages they had found themselves in. They all go back to their posts; this time, Richie notices, Bev settles against Ben’s side, pillowing her head on his shoulder. He looks over to the armchair. Bill and Mike have swapped places: Mike taking the seat now, with Bill perched on the arm. Forgoing the balancing act, Bill leans completely against Mike’s side, with the other throwing his arm around Bill’s back to keep him there.

Eddie makes some sort of noise in the back of his throat. After a moment, Richie shuffles back into his chair. “You need your beauty sleep.”

All Richie gets is a small mumble of something that could be an insult before he sees Eddie’s head droop.

* * *

Derry is haunted. The clown is dead – they made sure of that – but something still lingers in the air. It’s trauma. Or PTSD. Or something like that. With the clown dead, whatever had been blanketing the town, making those who left forget, that’s been lifted. Richie rubs his face. He’ll remember the clown, and It’s stupid mind games, and all that It did to them; but, he thinks as he settles back in his seat, at least he’ll remember the Losers. At least he’ll remember Eddie.

Richie elected to stay behind, as did Mike. Eddie has to be cleared by the head doctor and surgeon before he can even think of leaving. In one of his short moments of being not-entirely conscious, but trying his best to stay somewhat awake, he waves at the Losers to go if they want; to start sorting out the shit they left behind. And that’s what happened. Ben and Bev left a couple of days ago, hand in hand. And for all the shit that he gave Bev, saying that if they ever kissed in front of him, Richie would actually vomit a little bit in his mouth, he’s happy for her. Bill went back to his own place to, in his own words, ‘sort something out’. Richie glances over to Mike. Since Bill left, he’s been either skittish or borderline depressed and keeps mainly to himself.

Eddie spends most of the days sleeping, going through the last phase of strong antibiotics for an infection, and still attached to machines keeping a constant rhythm of beeps. Richie lasted an hour before the constant beeping finally got to him – and because he can’t physically detach the machines and throw them out the window, he’s been playing some playlists on his phone quietly in the background. Richie settles his head back against the cushion he put there to stop his neck from protesting every passing hour. “So,” he says quietly, “what’s going on between you and Bill?”

Mike, who had been drifting in and out of sleep, is suddenly bolted awake. “What?”

Richie offers a small, lopsided smile. “You and Bill,” he repeats slowly, “what’s going on there?”

Even in the shitty lighting of the room, and the fact that the sun has long since set outside, Richie can make out a small blush that starts to creep along Mike’s cheeks. He waves his hand. “Hey buddy, don’t sweat it. You don’t have to explain.”

“There’s nothing to explain, Richie.”

“Sure.”

“Leave him alone,” a tired, meek voice suddenly appears between the two of them. Richie looks down to see Eddie struggling to keep a hold on consciousness. His eyes are slightly open, but his head has lolled over to look in Richie’s direction. A small smile is curled through his lip. Richie blinks. He’s pretty sure that the antibiotics that Eddie has been put on are probably the strongest ones doctors can legally give a human being.

Still, Richie raises his hands. “You got it, Eddie Spaghetti.”

* * *

It’s really fucking difficult to listen to music when friends insist on calling every hour for updates. Richie steps outside to take the latest call from Bev. The door has a glass panel that can be covered with shutters. Peering back into the room, making sure that Eddie doesn’t spontaneously choke on his own tongue, Richie listens intently to everything Bev says. She’s staying with Ben in a house in Florida, down by the keys. She asks about Eddie: is he awake, how is he, when will he be allowed to go? Richie just gives a non-committal “I don’t know” because that’s all he’s managed to wrangle out of the doctors and nurses that have drifted in and out of the room in the past few weeks.

Bev hums. “And how are you?”

Richie blinks. “What?”

“How are you, dumbass?” she repeats. “You barely slept when Ben and I were there, keeping watch over Eddie all night. Have you been sleeping? Eating?”

“Honestly Bev, you sound like such a mom right now.”

“Richie-”

“-I’m alright,” he says. _I’m anything but alright_. “The nurses brought in a spare bed, so I’ve been sleeping for a couple of hours on that.” _I can close my eyes without seeing him like **that**. _“And the hospital food tastes like shit, but it’s enough.” _Anything that I’ve tried eating has been vomited into a toilet bowl_. _One of the nurses threatened to put me on a feeding tube._

There’s a moment of silence on the line for at least a minute, before Bev hums. “Okay. Okay, honey,” she says in a tone not entirely convinced. When Bev eventually hangs up, Richie slides his phone back into his pocket. The hospital corridor is quiet. Its barley 6am – visiting hours won’t be for another four hours. The only people that he occasionally sees walking around are nurses and orderlies.

Richie tries slipping back into the room as quietly as he can, but once the door has clicked shut behind him, he hears a rough cough from behind him. Glancing over his shoulder, he’s met with a pair of bleary eyes blinking at him.

Richie offers a small smile. “Hey.”

Eddie’s eyes are still heavy, but much clearer than what they have been in the past couple of weeks. “Hey.” His voice comes out raspy and cracked. Richie walks over to one of the bedside tables and helps Eddie take a small drink of water. Nurses have been getting him snacks and sodas for the past couple of days. There are only so many times he’ll eat mac and cheese that tastes a bit like rubber.

Eddie is kept slightly propped up by a mound of pillows at the head of the bed. It makes it easier for him to look at whoever is in the room, because he really doesn’t think he would be able to lift his head up and keep it there.

Richie falls back into his chair. “How’re you feeling?”

Eddie shrugs a shoulder. “Still tired, but okay, I guess.” He lets out a small, dry laugh. “Apart from the holes in my chest and face trying to close back up.”

Richie bites the inside of his cheek. Something drops inside, from his chest down to his stomach.

Eddie’s smile drops instantly. “Hey,” a hand crawls across the cotton sheets of the bed. “I’m joking. Everything’s okay. I’m here.”

Richie swallows. A thick lump is trying to lodge itself in his throat. “You almost...” the words wither away as soon as they’re out. _You almost **died**. The lights showed me a world in where you **were** dead. And I can’t begin to tell you how awful it was. _Richie doesn’t remember putting his hand on the edge of Eddie’s bed, but it’s suddenly covered by Eddie’s. Richie’s breath catches in his throat.

“Listen to me,” Eddie says – in a tone that none of them really use with each other. Something that is so sincere and soft. The Losers have their moments, but their affection is shown by hurling insults and jokes at each other whenever possible. This, whatever _this_ is, is something Richie isn’t used to. But he can’t find it in him to yank his hand away. “Let’s be serious for a second, got it?” Eddie swallows. “I’m okay. I’m going to be okay.”

He should probably make a joke. It’s what he would usually do. But now, Richie’s voice is lodged somewhere in his throat; and though his mouth opens and closes for a moment, no sound comes out.

Outside the window to the room, the first streaks of morning light start to break through the heavy clouds sitting over the town. Richie’s eyes start to sting a little bit. Whenever the nurses come, he tells them to turn the room lights off as they leave. The glow of machines and the small TV perched on the opposite wall is enough to illuminate Eddie’s body.

But he hasn’t slept. The clown is dead, but whatever It had touched is now poisoned. Nightmares are stalking around in the room, keeping to the shadows, waiting for Richie to slip under.

Richie sets his jaw; trying his best to plaster a smile over his lips. “Get some sleep, Eduardo,” he sits back into his armchair, “Mike will be back in a few hours.”

Again, all that comes out of Eddie is nothing more than a hum of acknowledgement. But as Richie watches sleep slowly start to lap over the other man again, taking him under, he finds himself suddenly more awake: prepared to keep his watch going.

_ Marsh: Have you eaten?_

_ Tozier: Yes mom_

_ Marsh: Don’t bullshit me. _

Richie glances up from his phone. A nurse is on the other side of Eddie’s bed. This time, the other man is completely lucid, able to hold a conversation with the woman. Armed with a pen and clipboard, she’s been taking a medical history for the past ten minutes now. Richie has to stop himself from smiling. Or barking out that whatever Eddie is saying _is_ wrong with him is bullshit. There’s nothing actually wrong. Physically, speaking. For all that he jokes about Eddie’s mom, she really is one of the worst people that he’s ever had the displeasure of knowing.

The phone in his hands buzzes again.

_ Marsh: I have eyes on you, Tozier. I’m always watching._

A smile tugs at the corner of his lip.

_ Tozier: I’m sure you have spies all over the country_

_ Marsh: Damn right._

By the time a doctor deems Eddie able to be discharged and released back into the wilds, it’s been another week and a half. Richie and Mike walk on either side of him. Richie has a knapsack bag slung over his shoulder. When it became clear that Eddie was going to be a resident within the hospital for a couple of weeks, Beverly took on the job of fetching all of their luggage from the inn. Eddie’s suitcases are with Mike, being wheeled along. Just outside the hospital, parked on the curb, is Richie’s car.

“Are you sure?” Eddie glances over, worrying his hands in front of him. He’s still too pale, Richie thinks. But he’s seen the packages of blood being fused into the other man’s veins. Or maybe it’s the fact that the sun never seems to stay long in the town. It’s always washed a blue colour, making everyone look paler than usual.

Richie nods after a second. “You said you needed a place to stay,” he says, “and I have a place. It’s perfect.”

Mike loads Eddie’s suitcases into the trunk of the car. Still, Eddie looks on, wringing his fingers together. “Yeah,” he mumbles. _I don’t want to go back home_, he said after the last of the antibiotics wore off, and his lucid brain finally stayed around longer than a minute. _My w-...I just can’t deal with that...right now_.

By the time Mike comes back to them, a rumble of thunder rolls over the town. He gives them both a smile; somehow a mixture of assuring and tired. “Promise to call?” he asks, looking between both of them. “Or text, at least.”

Eddie lets out a short laugh. “Absolutely.”

* * *

When sleep comes, it isn’t kind. Sleeping is...an experience. Anxiety seems to follow from room to room. It’s almost like having someone peering over your shoulder, watching what you’re doing and wondering how it can interfere. Richie finds that the tips of his fingers get numb, and sometimes, his stomach will toss and turn and not settle. After shaking his hands or doing a couple of laps pacing around his apartment, it’ll eventually go away. But it will always come back.

So he stares up at the ceiling. The city doesn’t sleep either. That’s probably one of the reasons why he likes spending time in New York; particularly when his mind just doesn’t know when to shut up. At least his thoughts have company. Outside, there are faint moorings of sirens and traffic. Lights from neighbouring bars and nightclubs shine in through the gap in his curtains.

The apartment has three bedrooms in it. Or, it did, at one stage. One of the bedrooms was turned into an office as soon as Richie got hold of the keys. He didn’t need that many rooms; but he always kept one spare, just in case of friends needing to crash for the night after one too many drinks at a local bar.

Richie sighs out into the otherwise quiet room. Eddie is sleeping in the other room. Or, to the best of Richie’s knowledge, he is. Richie assumes that all of them are having some pretty bad nightmares, and probably will be for the next few years. Nothing a couple of years of hardcore therapy won’t sort out.

He wonders vaguely about the others. How are they getting on? Texts and calls have been traded. Each of them answers the question in the same way. _Fine. We’re fine_. Richie can’t help but snort. All of them are so far from being fine.

Out in the hallway, there are footsteps. Richie sits up. Every ounce of rational thinking goes into assuring himself that there’s another person in the house, and that the bathroom is on the other side of the hallway, and that those footsteps definitely belong to Eddie. Not a fucking clown.

Still, Richie finds himself flinging off the sheets and wandering over to his bedroom door. He rests his hand on the door handle. Looking down, he’s slightly surprised to see that his knuckles are white as the door handle leaves an impression in the skin of his hand. Easing his grip, Richie keeps his ear close to the door. Someone – _Eddie_, he reminds himself – must go into the bathroom across the hall. Richie hears the tell-tale sound of a door gently clicking shut.

* * *

Richie tries not to listen. He really tries. But his apartment is pretty open-planned – verging on studio-apartment territory – and whatever walls are there, dividing up the bedrooms and bathrooms, are pretty thin. His laptop has been sitting in front of him now for almost an hour, with an empty document sat, staring back at him. That, and a couple of opened internet tabs that have long since been forgotten about.

He should probably put on headphones. Or play one of his playlists at the very least. Because even though he knows that Eddie is trying to keep his voice down, Richie’s ears twitch at the sound of muffled shouting, followed by a door slamming and a loud _FUCK._

Looking over his shoulder, Richie sees Eddie make a beeline from the hallway leading from the bedrooms towards the kitchen.

Richie bites the inside of his cheek. He doesn’t have the best of timing in the world, but even he knows that now isn’t the right time for a “_so...how did it go?_”

He watches Eddie lean against the kitchen counter for a moment, breathing steadily. Richie gently shuts his laptop and pushes back from his desk.

“You okay?”

Eddie sucks in a sharp breath, brushing back his hair from his face. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” he gets out in one breath, before taking another one. He turns around, leaning against the countertop, and puts his face in his hands. Richie winces when he sees the other man’s hands are shaking. “Christ, I mean, I can’t-I can’t deal with it! After everything – I nearly fucking _died_, and Myra is freaking out and I don’t want her to freak out, and I just want out of whatever the fuck we got into in the first place, and I know it isn’t fair that I’m here and she’s there and that we should really do this in person but, _God_-”

Richie raises his hands. “Hey, hey,” he says, “slow down for a sec, Eds. Breathe.”

It’s at this point where Eddie would probably be looking for his inhaler. Richie noticed that he never got a new one. Whenever Eddie feels like he can’t breathe now, he’ll just leave the room, go somewhere else for a bit, and eventually come back like nothing ever happened. But now, it looks like Eddie is barrelling towards a full-on panic attack, and his hands start feeling around his hoodie, going into pockets trying to fish out something that isn’t there.

He tries not to crowd the other man against his kitchen units, but he places his hands on Eddie’s shoulders and tilts him back, making sure that the other man can actually look at him. “Do you feel like you and her could have a productive conversation?”

Eddie snorts. “Fuck no. She’ll say something and I’ll be back being a kid again, doing whatever it was my mom told me, and _don’t you fucking dare make a joke about me marrying my mom, Richie_.”

Richie holds up his hands for a second. “Eddie, you and I make fun of each other all the time, but I know where the fucking line is.”

“Do you?”

“Yes!”

Eddie levels a look at him. “_Beep beep, Richie_. We literally coined a phrase to use because you have no fucking idea where the line is.”

“I was younger! Naive, headstrong-”

“-A dumbass.”

Richie places his hands back on Eddie’s shoulders. “Oh, so it’s okay for you to take jabs at me when you’re like this, but I’m not allowed to?” Underneath his palms, Richie can feel the tremors slowly dissolve. Fear, _panic_, it’s starting to leave. It almost vanishes completely when a small smile starts to tug at the corner of Eddie’s lip.

A harsh buzzing sound almost makes Richie jump out of his skin. Eddie’s phone starts seizing on the marble countertop, where it had been thrown to the side. He tries not to glance at the screen to see who it is, but he can tell from the harsh expulsion of air out of Eddie’s nose that it’s no one good.

He stares at his phone for a moment, thumb hovering over the screen. Eventually, a missed call is logged. “I’m sorry,” he says, brushing past Richie, “I just-I just got to sort something out.”

Richie nods in understanding. “That’s okay.”

Before Eddie has a chance to disappear back down the hallway, Richie clears his throat. “Do you want to do something tonight?” Richie says, adjusting his glasses. “Like, watch a movie, or something? Just...chill.”

_Like, Netflix and Chill_. And my God, does Richie just want to slap the shit out of his own brain. Christ; is he really wired this way? How can this shit be turned off?

“Yeah, sure.” Eddie glances down at his phone again, before turning on his heel and disappearing down the hallway.

The general agreement between them is that they can never look at a Chinese takeout again. Pizza arrives at the apartment instead. The box sits in the middle of the coffee table, separating a long, deep-set couch and Richie’s TV. Richie sits splayed out on the couch, legs just thrown off in different directions. His couch has a crease in one of the back cushions that fit his spine perfectly; although, if he continues sitting like this, he’ll be fully paralyzed by the time he’s fifty.

Eddie, though, sits up slightly straighter, but leaning against the armrest. His head is perched on his fist, and in his other hand is a bottle of beer. Richie finished his almost an hour ago. There’s a pleasant hum tingling through his veins, but nothing more. Eddie also seems to be the only one of them actually watching the movie. Whatever is playing, Richie has no idea; which is slightly alarming, seeing as though the choice was left up to him. It _is_ his Netflix account, after all.

But all at once, a lot of things started coming back to him. What has been a pleasant surprise is not a single terrible, terrifying memory has come with it. What he remembers are all the times of him and Eddie hanging out – just the two of them. A summer spent with five other people was nice, but every so often, the Losers didn’t have the means of all meeting up together. Sometimes they just paired off with whoever was free and make a day of it.

Richie remembers all of the times he snuck in through the window of Eddie’s bedroom, knowing full well that if Mrs. K ever found him there, it would strike just as much fear into his soul than any fucking stupid clown. But what was he to do? _Eddie is feeling unwell. Eddie needs his rest. There’s a flu going around and despite the fact that Eddie has had three flu shots, he still needs to be locked in under quarantine. _

A sock-covered toe nudges his shin. “Earth to Trashmouth.” Eddie’s looking at him. “Everything okay? You just kinda...went away for a bit.”

The movie is in its third act. It’s not the greatest thing he’s ever seen, but then again, he hasn’t really been paying that much attention.

“How are you?” Richie suddenly sends out into the air.

Eddie arches an eyebrow. “What?”

Richie shrugs his shoulder. “Just...how are you? We haven’t...really, spoken about...I don’t know.”

A long, slow sigh leaves Eddie. “I’m...not great. Better than what I was, I guess. My face and stomach feel fine.” He takes a measured swig of beer. “But, I don’t know, I guess... I keep waiting for it to go away. The memories, that is.”

“Mike has theories,” Richie says slowly, recounting the long phone call he had with the other man just the other day. After, of course, all of the cheap jabs made at Mike’s expense once Richie noticed that Bill’s living room and the living room of Mike’s newest residence look _suspiciously_ similar.

Eddie nods. “Whatever made us forget must have been killed with It,” he says simply. But his voice wavers over It’s name.

Richie turns to look at him. The main lights of the living room have been turned off. The only thing actually illuminating the space is the harsh bluish glow of the TV. But it catches the slight bags that have started to settle underneath Eddie’s eyes. “Can you sleep?”

“Not really.”

“Me neither...”

Eddie nods. “I’ve noticed.”

At that, Richie blinks. “What?”

There’s a sharp laugh. “Dude, your bags have bags,” Eddie gestures to his own eyes. “And I hear you, sometimes. Walking around, not really able to settle down.”

Richie’s thumb runs along the embossed glass of his bottle of beer. He turns his attention back to the movie, but it’s in its third act now and Richie has no fucking idea what’s happening.

“It’s okay, you know.” Richie feels the couch shift with Eddie as he turns to face the other man. “We all went through...a lot of shit. It’s okay to be bothered.”

“I’m not bothered.”

“Don’t be a five-year-old, Richie.”

“I’m _not_.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. Setting his beer down on the table, Eddie shuffles closer. A sudden burst of panic fires through Richie’s veins the second that Eddie’s knee brushes the outside of his thigh. _How in the name of God did they ever sit in the same hammock without feeling like this? Did he feel like this?—_

“Rich,” Eddie says, leaning forward slightly. “Do you want to talk about anything? Anything that _It_ said or did or-”

“-No.” Richie clenches his jaw. Tension tightens around his cheek as soon as his teeth start grinding together. _No. **I know your secret**. No, I don’t want to talk about anything_. **_Your dirty little secret_**.

Richie keeps his eyes focused on the TV. Some shitty action sequence is playing out; something Richie can just look at for a moment, and try ignoring the fact that Eddie is still there, sitting, knee against the outside of his thigh, _staring at him_.

“Fine,” Eddie eventually says. And although their conversation is done, and they both move back to finish off the movie, Richie can’t help but peer under the rim of his glasses to see the outside of Eddie’s thigh pressed to his own.

* * *

_Maybe they should all have a support group_. Richie can confidently say that he can draw the outline of his bedroom from memory now, given how many sleepless nights so far that he’s spent looking around, waiting for sleep to come. He turns again, facing one of the large, wall-to-ceiling windows that look out on to the city. _They should definitely have a support group. Shrinks and counsellors aren’t trained to deal with any of the shit that they’ve been through. _

_Who would know how to treat someone suffering from PTSD induced by a fear-mongering alien, clown, thing?_

* * *

“I could come with you, you know? That’s...that’s if you want me to. I reckon the odds would be better, two on one.”

Eddie barks a dry laugh. “No offense Richie, but you would make it so much more worse than it needs to be.” Eddie lives in a nice suburb of New York, Richie notices. Tall, towering buildings stand overhead. Each apartment inside is probably worth his entire life savings. Despite his job being probably the most boring and soul-destroying job in the world, it makes up for it in cash. It’s a strange thing, uncovering the fact that Eddie lives in a tower block of apartments. Richie would have assumed he would have preferred something outside of the city, somewhere that has parks and open spaces. This is almost claustrophobic.

Richie drums his fingers against the steering wheel. “Just thought that I would offer my services as a hypeman, is all,” Richie shrugs. If he could slap his own brain, he would have done it long ago. _Of course he doesn’t want you coming with him_, some other logical part of his brain unearths itself and hisses at him. _He’s about to finally, officially, once and for all, separate from his wife. He’s got the forms in his bag. Why would he bring you into the apartment he shared with his wife?_

Suddenly, there’s heat on Richie’s forearm. “I’m only going up to hand these to her.” He sounds assuring. Whether or not it’s being aimed at Richie or himself is up for debate. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Richie’s eyes dart between Eddie’s face and the hand he has on Richie’s arm. It’s still there. It’s not moving. Heat is starting to melt through Richie’s skin and into his muscles—

And as soon as his heart has started to settle, the hand on his arm is gone. When Eddie steps out of the car, and the door closes behind him, the air suddenly turns bitingly cold.

* * *

His manager’s voice is still in his ear. _Where the **fuck** have you been? A friends’ reunion? Who the fuck is Stanley? You don’t even know a Stanley! Since when are you from Maine?_

The apartment is quiet. Eddie’s bedroom door is open. Peering inside, Richie frowns slightly when he doesn’t see the other man there. The bed is impeccably made though – something else can be said by Richie’s own room. He wanders through his apartment, eventually getting to the kitchen. And then all at once, smells wrap around him. Eddie is at the stove, back to Richie, humming something under his breath. 

“What’s all this?” Richie hates that he has to break the peace that’s settled in the air, but it’s a strange scene that’s playing out in front of him.

Eddie glances over his shoulder. He points to one of the drawers with a ladle. “Could you grab some knives and forks? This should be done in the next five minutes.”

Richie’s feet root him to the ground for a moment. He understands the order. Eddie has asked him to do something. That’s cool. But now, he’s just content to watch Eddie mill around the kitchen, peering into pots and checking that everything is going well. “What’re you making?”

“Spaghetti and bolognaise.”

Richie grins. “Living up to the nickname, then?”

“You know I hate that nickname.”

“I do,” Richie says, as soon as he steps into the kitchen. “But you know our dynamic: I say something that bothers you, you get annoyed, and it spirals out of control from there.”

Eddie pulls out some toasted bread rolls from the oven. The warm smell of garlic and butter coats the top of Richie’s mouth, and he swears he’s about to fall to his knees. Most of his adult life has been spent with takeout and ready-made meals. He can count the amount of times he would have cooked for himself on one hand. But this is different. This is _Eddie_ cooking – something that is so vivid in his memory of when they were younger, and even though back then it would have been simple spaghetti or tacos or quesadillas, it was the fact that it was Eddie who did all of that which made Richie weak.

_Get it together, Tozier_. 

Eddie switches off the burners. “I was talking to Beverly on the phone earlier.” At Richie’s inquisitive hum, Eddie presses on. “She’s thinking about going for therapy. About a lot of things, but mostly about...what happened in Derry.”

Richie fishes the last of the cutlery out of the drawer. He blinks. “Oh. Well, good for her, I guess. Whatever helps deal with...all of it.”

Eddie looks over his shoulder. “I was thinking that we should do the same.”

_We. _Richie scoffs. “I don’t think many shrinks would know how to deal with trauma from Deadlights and evil ET-killer clowns.”

Eddie’s expression doesn’t change. “You’d be surprised,” is all he says after a moment, turning back to portioning up some pasta.

“I mean, how the fuck could you say that to someone without being thrown headfirst into a mental hospital?” Richie falls into one of the settings at the table. Eddie moves so comfortably around the kitchen, it catches him off guard. The other man grabs two plates and serves up plentiful portions of pasta and sauce. The bread rolls are put on to a separate plate, stacked up high. The rolls are put on the table first, and Richie immediately plucks one from the top. When Eddie comes back with their plates of pasta, he tries not to smile at the sight of Richie pretty much stuffing the whole roll into his mouth. “Chew your food. I’m not dealing with you choking.”

Richie covers his mouth with his fist. “You put a plate of garlic and buttery bread in front of me and expect me to restrain myself?”

Eddie rolls his eyes and puts Richie’s plate down in front of the man. For the first time since sitting down, Richie notices that vials of olive oil and balsamic vinegar sit around a small bowl of grated parmesan. Richie balks. _Did Eddie get these? _He can’t remember the last time he had anything like that in his own house—

“This is a first,” Eddie says when he takes his own seat on the other side of the table. “Richie ‘Trashmouth’ Tozier is silent.”

“Well fuck you, dude,” Richie says around a mouthful of bread. The silence that settles over them is a comfortable one. Like when they were kids; no one ever felt the need to fill the silence, although, Richie being Richie, often would just for a laugh.

It’s another couple of minutes before Richie finds his voice again. “What’s the story with the divorce, then?”

“Jesus. I preferred the _you_ that was here a couple of minutes ago,” Eddie groans, “the one who wasn’t talking.”

“You complained that I wasn’t talking, so here I am,” Richie points his fork at Eddie.

“Signed,” Eddie says simply, swirling some pasta around on his plate.

Richie eats another forkful of pasta. “So...she agreed to it then?”

Eddie picks at his food for another minute before he nods. “Eventually.”

Richie nods. He turns his full attention on to the food in front of him. He picks up some bread rolls, tearing them and wiping away the tomato sauce still left on his plate even after he’s demolished the pasta.

“Can I ask you something?”

Richie swallows whatever food is in his mouth. In the otherwise quiet kitchen, he’s so afraid that a comical _gulp_ing sound just came out of him. “Sure.”

There is a terrifying moment between them where nothing is said at all. Eddie looks down at his plate, tapping his fork against the side of it, presumably trying to put together words. Something has a tight grip on Richie’s chest, squeezing firmly and not letting him breathe properly.

Eddie eventually clears his throat. “When do you want me to move out?”

“What?”

“Everything with Myra is being sorted out,” Eddie shrugs a shoulder, but looks down at his plate. “The divorce should be finalised soon. We signed a prenup before we got married, so nothing will have to be distributed or anything like that. But, I was thinking,” Eddie bites the inside of his cheek, “when it’s all done, when do you want me to go?”

“I...” And probably, for the first time in his life, Richie has nothing to say. His brain is currently five steps behind, trying to organise and sort through whatever the fuck it was that Eddie just said to him.

“I don’t want you to go.” Richie sits back in his chair. “You can stay here for as long as you want, you know that.”

“I know, but,” Eddie frowns, “I feel like...I don’t know, this is _your_ place.”

“You can stay here for as long as you want,” Richie presses. Food long forgotten about, Richie sits forward, leaning an elbow against the table. He points a finger at Eddie. “You got that? You can stay here. I have literally no problem with that.” His voice wobbles, but with a quick, small cough, he’s able to get it back together. “Got it?”

Eddie twirls some pasta around his fork. After what seems to be too long of a pause, he squares his jaw. “Yeah.” He glances up at Richie. “Thank you.”

* * *

It’s dark.

It’s dark and cold.

His skin is soaked and his clothes are heavy. Staggering up what seems to be a rock formation, Richie glances up, squinting, and sees the sharp, ebony spikes jutting out of the middle of the cavern.

Dread settles into his stomach like a dead weight_. No_, he chokes, rubbing at his eyes. _Please don’t tell me I’m back here. _But no matter how many times Richie presses his fingers against his eyelids, he still feels the inherent _wrong_ness of the cavern. Everything felt so fucking wrong. Like It had been watching them as soon as they had wandered into the cave, trying to chant over something that wouldn’t work—

Richie’s breath starts to catch in his throat.

His feet don’t even make a sound as he steps out into the cavern. The only sound that Richie can pick up on is the rushing of blood in his ears. The cavern is so silent and still, hackles rise at the back of his neck. _It’s here, somewhere_, he thinks as he scrambles on to his back, scanning the entire space. One of his glasses’ lenses is cracked, smeared and freckled with greywater from the swim in. Richie looks over his shoulder. He’s alone, he suddenly realises. And it’s a realisation that drops into his stomach. None of the others are here.

Among all the cold, there’s warmth on his chest. The front of his shirt is drenched. Pulling his hand away, his palm is coated in a wet warmth. And despite the limited light in the cavern, he can see dark, crimson liquid staining his skin.

“Richie.”

_Oh God_, Richie clenches his eyes shut. _Please not again_, _he’s safe now. He’s alive. You can’t take him away—_

“Richie.”

He looks up, just as hot blood spatters across his face and—

He scrambles out of the sheets until his back hits the headboard of the bed. Richie’s chest heaves with every breath he tries to catch. His lungs sting, not filling quickly enough to make his heart settle the fuck down.

_It’s not real. The clown is dead. It can’t hurt you_.

Two warm hands frame his face. “Richie. Rich, listen to me.” Eddie’s face is suddenly in front of his, just a couple of centimetres away. _Are you awake? Is he going to_\--?

“Richie,” Eddie says a bit more firmly. The familiar sights and scents of his own room come back to him. The small cracks in the skirting boards by the ceiling and the framed posters of movies he likes and the clothes just tossed around the room—It all comes back, and Richie’s heart starts to slow.

In front of him, Eddie sits at the edge of his bed. The next thing that comes back to Richie is the very real warmth of Eddie’s skin against his face. The stroking of thumbs against his cheekbones. Richie catches some skin by his wrist and twists. A shot of pain lights up his arm. He’s awake. He’s awake and Eddie is here, and talking to him, and—

Richie gasps. “I saw you die,” he tries to get out. It’s nothing more than a croak. His throat is closing up. A lump is lodging itself in his throat, making it hard to breathe.

Eddie clicks his tongue. “Come here,” he gentles, pulling Richie to his side. The other man gives up easily, letting himself curl around Eddie. Eddie hugs him firmly, almost like an anchor. Richie’s arms are trapped between them, but where his hand presses against Eddie’s chest, he can feel the other man’s heart hammering inside his chest.

“It fucking killed you in front of me,” Richie sobs. Trembling fingers clutch at the front of Eddie’s tee.

“Hey, hey. I’m alright. I’m here, with you.” They move. Eddie brings them further on to the bed, settling them both against the headboard. Richie still clings to him. His fingers find bits of fabric from his tee, and Richie just can’t let go. That fucking clown could take him away again.

He isn’t sure how long they sit there for; but it’s long enough for the sky outside to start turning a violet colour. Richie blinks. His eyes are dry and sore, and a killer migraine is starting to tighten along his forehead.

Eddie is so still, for a second, Richie thinks he might have fallen back asleep. His chest has been constantly rising and falling; and his heart thumps in a regular, slow rhythm. He might not be moving, but he is _alive_. Richie’s fingers cramp with how long he’s been holding on to Eddie’s shirt. But he can’t find it in him to let go just yet.

* * *

Beverly barely has the chance to say _hello_ once she picks up, before Richie’s mouth races ahead.

Of all the shit that comes out, Richie can’t remember actually sitting down and trying to put it all into a coherent narrative. It’s a series of points, ramblings, and ultimately, a lot of derailing once Richie is set down a particular path. Maybe going to a therapist wouldn’t be such a good idea. He dreads to imagine that some stranger he’s paying to listen to his problems would get this word-vomit, rather than one of his best friends.

By the time he’s finished accounting for every single little thing that has happened since getting Eddie out of hospital, Richie takes in a large gulp of air. The apartment is empty. He made sure of it. Eddie went out to do something somewhere. If Richie’s completely honest, he stopped listen after Eddie mentioned something or other about “management board meetings”.

A moment of silence settles between Richie and Beverly, and for a second, he thinks that maybe the call got dropped. And that he’ll have to call her back, and rehash everything he had just said. But suddenly there is a sound on the other end of the line. A huff of breath. Richie frowns. A _laugh_.

“Oh honey,” she giggles, “that brain of yours finally caught up, then?”

Richie scrunches his face. “What?”

Beverly outright _laughs_. “Are you seriously just realising that you’re in love with Eddie Kaspbrak now?”

“No!” Richie balks, but slaps a hand over his mouth even though the house is totally empty. “No,” he mutters. “I’ve always known.”

“So you didn’t know about Eddie then?”

“No.”

“God, boys are fucking dumb.”

“Bev!”

At some point in his rambling, Richie migrated out into the living room. Lounging on the couch, he stretches out his legs and hooks his heels on one of the armrests. Looking to one side, he has a good view of the front door.

In the background of the call, Richie strains to hear Ben’s voice mumbling something. “What the fuck is Haystack laughing at?!”

He must be on loudspeaker. _Fuck you, Marsh. _“Richie, I know you’re practically blind, pal, but anyone with eyes can see that Eddie worships the ground you walk on.”

Richie adjusts his glasses. “Fuck you both.” Did the heating in his apartment turn on? Why the fuck is it so hot in here? Richie presses his hand to his forehead and then to his cheek. He’s sweating.

“We’re just saying that whatever you’re feeling is one-sided!” Beverly cuts back in. She must have snatched her phone back or taken him off of speaker because Richie can just hear her talking now. “I promise, honey, if you talk to Eddie about this, he’ll tell you what you need to hear.”

Richie bites the inside of his cheek. Inside his chest, his heart is hammering against his ribcage, about to burst out and on to the ground. He swallows. “I’m scared.”

She clicks her tongue. “Oh I know, honey. I know. But listen,” she soothes, “everything will be okay. You don’t have to be afraid of anything anymore.”

There’s the sound of a door closing down the hallway. Richie’s head snaps to the right. Even with the main lights not on, he can make out Eddie’s outline hooking his workbag and coat on to racks by the door.

Richie swallows. “I have to go, Bev.”

“Tell Eddie I said _hi_,” she says softly. “And good luck, Trashmouth.”

When the call drops, Richie stuffs his phone back into his pocket.

* * *

It’s fine.

Everything is fine.

Things couldn’t be more fine if they needed to be.

Richie bolts as soon as he doesn’t feel the stage lights on him anymore. The wings are so much colder, and his skin breaks out in gooseflesh. People are in his way; offering wide smiles and congratulations on a show. But he doesn’t hear any of it. Applause from the main theatre makes the earth underneath his feet tremble, even with the distance he’s putting between himself and the stage.

His manager follows him for some of his journey, grabbing at his arm and trying to make him stop. _No_, Richie keeps yanking his arm away. _Go away_.

No one follows him into his dressing room. Once the door slams shut behind him, silence settles. And it’s deafening. His fingers twitch as he wrings his hands together, hoping that the growing sense of dread chilling his blood will just go away. The room manages to look small and big at the same time. A large window lines one wall of the room, with a long table sitting in front of it. On the table, Richie spots all of the products used by the makeup team before the show. The harsh smell of hairspray still sits over the air, stinging the roof of his mouth.

Richie presses his fingers against his eyelids. _It’s fine. Everything is fine_. When he opens his eyes again, bright dots dance around the room. Grunting, he wanders over to the small fridge to one side of the room, and fishes out a water.

He made a point to his manager; _tell venues to not have any alcohol in the green rooms_. He needs something to take the edge off, though. Who’s fucking idea was it to keep booze away from him? His skin is on fire--

A gentle knock on the door almost sends the bottle of water out of Richie’s hand and on to the floor. “Yeah?” he manages to get out.

The door cracks open, and his assistant’s head pops in. “Mr. Tozier? There are some people here to see you,” his assistant says, turning to briefly look to the side. When she turns back to face him, she continues. “They say that they’re friends of yours?”

Richie rubs his face again. “Sure, yeah, sure, let them in.”

As soon as the first person, Bev, steps into the dressing home, his chest feels that bit better. Whatever had a vice-like grip around his lungs was starting to ease off.

The Losers flood in. Their praises for the show are all lost as they all start talking at once; and maybe his shrink would tell him that that amount of information isn’t good, it could induce an overload, but Richie wouldn’t have it any other way. Someone’s halfway through saying something to him, before someone else hugs him, and ruffles his hair. It’s absolute chaos, but it’s familiar.

Beverly announces that they’re all going for a dinner. A reservation had been made to a restaurant on the other side of the city, one that was due in half an hour. Beverly wraps her arms around Richie in a tight hug. “Get all of that stage-sweat off of you and let’s go,” she smiles, framing his face in her hands. “You did so well, Trashmouth. We’re so proud of you.”

Eddie is the last to leave. The voices of the rest of the Losers eventually fizzle out the further down the hall they go. Eventually, Richie’s ears twitch at the sound of the stage door being opened for them. But he keeps staring at the other man, standing a couple of feet away, hands shoved awkwardly into his bomber pockets.

Richie’s fingers fidget by his side. “So...what’d ya think?” And Richie just may vomit right in the space between them.

For probably the longest second of his life, it’s just silence. One then entirely shattered by Eddie chuckling under his breath. “I always knew that there was something you weren’t telling me,” he smiles. It’s one of the rare ones; one that reaches his eyes and bares his teeth. “Very on-brand for you to come out to a theatre full of strangers.”

“Well, my best friends were in the front row,” Richie amends, and there wasn’t one second in the show where he didn’t throw an odd glance down to the front. There, dead-centre with the stage, sat the other five Losers, all grinning up at him and trying to hide it. Because, God forbid, if they finally had to let Richie know that maybe he was funny after all.

Eddie’s shoulders are raised and tight, almost up to his ears. He looks how Richie feels, if he’s going to be honest.

“You know you’re going to be some kind of millennial icon now, right?” Eddie’s grin doesn’t fade. “And it’s going to annoy the shit out of me.”

Richie laughs. “Honestly, that’s what I was going for, to be honest.”

He’s already told them. Of course he has. In his living room, with his TV segmented by feeds of Ben and Bev, and Mike and Bill, and with Eddie at the other side of the couch, he just kinda blurted it out. God, he can’t even remember what they were talking about in the first place. It must have been something that caused an argument, because what Richie does remember is five different voices all trying to cut across each other, while he stared down at his hands on his lap.

_So I’m gay._

So he said it.

It was out in the open now.

Silence.

_Like...really gay. _

And Christ, he’s never heard silence like it.

Until;

“Richie.” He turns to find the source of the softest voice he’s ever heard. The source sitting right next to him. Eddie looked back at him with wide eyes, but not a trace of _whatever Richie was expecting to find_ were in them. A small smile curled along Eddie’s lip. “Thank you for telling us.”

And even though it was almost a month ago, Richie can still remember everyone’s reaction word for word.

And now, a theatre of his fans now know; the first group of many, being the first show he’s done of the new tour. Though, he doubts that it’ll be much more of a surprise to the rest of the country, and maybe the world, after tonight. As he was leaving the stage, he saw those in the front yanking their phones out of pockets and bags. Twitter is probably flooded.

Richie draws in a steady breath. “So...can I tell you something?”

A small frown furrows Eddie’s brow. “Sure,” he says.

Richie rubs the back of his neck. Even out of the glaring lights of the stage, his skin is starting to sizzle with warmth again. “I thought it might be easier,” he waves a hand around, “saying it to you alone.”

He glances around. “Well, we’re alone now,” he says, tilting his head to the side. “So do you wanna tell me now, or at home?”

Richie blows out a harsh breath. He shoves his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, willing his fingers to stop picking at the seams along the outside of his thighs. “Dude, I’ve been trying to say this shit for _decades_,” he can’t help the light laugh at the end. Because he’s learned that when a certain kind of fear settles over him, he’ll laugh to cope. And yeah, maybe he should bring that up with his shrink.

But Eddie visibly swallows, lifting his chin. “Well, go on then.”

And anxiety is back, leering over his shoulder, breathing a cold chill against his ear. _They’re still my friends, _he thinks. Whether or not he’s saying it to the Demon by his face or himself, he isn’t entirely sure. _It’s been a month and they haven’t pushed me away. _

But what he has to tell Eddie is different; Eddie _could_ push him away. And at the same time, it’s Eddie – Eddie would never push him away. Eddie, who’s looking at him patiently with the kindest of eyes, head slightly tilted, waiting for whatever it is that’s going to fall out of Richie’s mouth; but who isn’t going to try and coax it out of him.

“I just...” And Richie swallows. He breathes. “I’ve...I’ve liked you for a...for a very long time. And what I said out there on stage,” his fingers twitch, “I’m like, super gay, dude, and..._Christ_. Um. I, I really like you. Love you, even. Yeah,” Richie rubs the back of his neck, looking down at his Converse. “I...I love you.”

And it’s out. _Christ, it’s like ripping off a bandage_. And now that it’s out, that the words are just sitting in the air between them, Richie can’t breathe.

There’s a sigh. A smile curls along Eddie’s lip. “Whatever’s between me and you, it certainly wasn’t between me and her.” Eddie spares a quick glance down at his left hand, to where his wedding ring would have been. Richie can remember the first time he noticed that Eddie wasn’t wearing it. Where it is, he has no idea. He doesn’t want to know. Because the ring is _her_, and from all of the late-night conversations they’ve had about her, Richie’s pretty sure he doesn’t want to even hear her name mentioned for as long as he lives.

Eddie clears the space between them in a matter of steps. Before Richie can gather himself, one of his hands is taken by Eddie. “I always thought that maybe there was something there, but I never asked because, what was I meant to say, you know?” And he watches as Richie nods; because _of course he knows_. Eddie bites the inside of his cheek. “But, when we got back to Derry, when I saw you again, it’s like someone had punched me in the stomach. It all came back.” He breathes out a harsh breath.

With his free hand, Richie reaches for Eddie’s face. His fingertips trail along the man’s jaw, curling and winding towards the back of his neck. The air in the room seems that much thicker now, squeezing his lungs.

“When...when I was with her, I just, I always felt that something was wrong. Like it wasn’t just the marriage that was wrong, but her. Someone somewhere was telling me that I didn’t belong with anyone else. That my person was somewhere out there.” Eddie blinks. The whites of his eyes are starting to turn red. And it breaks Richie’s heart. “And yeah,” Eddie sighs, “there you were in the Jade of the Orient, standing there, and it all got clearer. I was meant to be with you. I just...didn’t know how to go about it.”

“Well we’re here now,” Richie concedes, tilting Eddie’s head up. His eyes hood, dropping down to Eddie’s lips. His thumb swipes across them. “Can...Can I kiss you?”

Eddie leans forward. Distantly, in the back of Richie’s mind, he thinks it’s cute how Eddie has to lean up on his toes slightly just to reach Richie. But their kiss is a short thing, a meeting of lips and a shared breath. But Richie’s hand doesn’t move from the back of Eddie’s head. He wants more. He wants to know what Eddie’s kisses are like. He wants to know if he makes any noises that he can absolutely tease him about later.

But—

He breaks away. “The others are waiting,” he mumbles against Eddie’s lips, not quite ready to let the warmth leave him just yet.

Eddie seems to be the same. He snares one last lingering kiss from Richie before patting the man’s chest. “Come on, then,” he smiles.

* * *

There’s a trail of clothes from the front door to Richie’s bedroom. Most of them belong to him, only because Eddie Kaspbrak has _nimble_ fingers that do quick work. While Richie still fumbles with the bottom buttons of Eddie’s shirt, the other man huffs a laugh into Richie’s neck. “Everything alright, Trashmouth?”

“Jesus, Eds. I’m about to have sex with my childhood crush for the first time, after coming out to a packed theatre of strangers. Cut me some fucking slack.”

And Eddie’s body almost seizes with how hard he’s laughing. Eventually, he offers to help with the shirt. It, as well as jeans and underwear, get flung into some corner of Richie’s room, out of sight and mind.

It isn’t until Eddie catches Richie’s hand, holding them between the two of them, does he realise how badly he’s shaking. “I know this is some decades old, repressed gay shit going on,” he breathes, laughing around his words again. “But gimme a sec and I’ll blow your goddamn mind, Spaghetti.”

Eddie squeezes his hands around the other man’s. “We’ve all the time in the world now,” he says quietly. Their fingers interlock. “Take your time. I don’t want you passing out on me and leaving me with blue-balls.”

“Imagine the horror.”

Eddie catches Richie’s lips in a kiss.

It wasn’t unlike what they did back in Derry, at the Jade of the Orient; though this time, thankfully, there was a distinct lack of fucked up, mind-game horror shit. Around a table, the six of them had eaten and drank and absolutely railed each other about what they all had been doing in their times away. The All-Knowing Eyes of one Beverly Marsh observing and smirking all through dinner; a smirk that only grew into _smug_ when Eddie’s hand brushed against Richie’s on the table.

If he’s going to be honest, it could be a bit too much; separating himself from Eddie every five minutes, making absolutely sure that Eddie is here, with him, and wanting to have sex with him. But, he swears to God, if this is some Deadlights-Illusion-Bullshit, and the body below him fizzles away into the air, and he’s left alone in his bedroom, he might just throw himself off of his building’s roof. 

One of them eventually pulls away. He isn’t sure which one of them does it, but what he does know is how close they are.

Eddie frames Richie’s face with his hands. For a quiet moment, Eddie’s eyes just bear into Richie’s. Their noses still touch, shared warm breath puffing between them. The world slips away.

“I love you so much.” And the words almost lodge in his throat. It’s a struggle to get them out, but Richie breathes around them. When an outright sob wracks it’s way up Richie’s throat, he’s met by a softly frowning face staring back at him. Richie shakes his head. “No, let me just—I love you, and I know you might not want to hear that now, because we legit just cleared all of this feeling shit up four hours ago, but I want you to know that I’ve loved you for decades. And now that we’re here, I just...”

Eddie kisses him again, wrapping his arms around Richie’s shoulders and carding fingers through his hair. He pulls away after a minute, but keeps their lips touching. “It’s okay,” he whispers. And even that sounds too loud in the otherwise quiet room.

It’s a strange scene; hovering over Eddie’s body, seeing him splayed out underneath him in _Richie’s _bed. And Eddie’s looking back up at him, thumbs gently moving across Richie’s cheekbones and jaw, tracing and memorising. It’s all a bit much, and at the same time, not enough. So he leans down and kisses Eddie, moaning into the other man’s mouth when Eddie’s fingers comb through and tighten in his hair.

He’s slept with guys before; quick trysts and flings that never lasted more than a couple of weeks, if he was lucky. Something just never felt right. Something had always whispered to him in the middle of the night, when his latest would be snoozing beside him, or on their way out of his apartment, that it was all wrong. Not that it was _guys_, no, he had steadily come to terms with all of that. But the person was wrong.

The universe was telling him _you’ve already been matched up, dickhead. You’ve been hitched to someone, and we’re trying to get you both back in the same room again. _

The first couple of thrusts are gentle. Eddie had caught his hand, the one coated in lube about to tease him open, just telling him that he had never done anything like this before – but it was okay, because it was Richie, and he did want to do it, _but just take it slow_.

And he doesn’t know how long he spent coaxing and teasing Eddie’s body open, peppering kisses along the line of Eddie’s neck, making sure it was all okay.

So when Richie finally gets into him, when he pushes in and Eddie’s arms tighten around his shoulders, and he has to bite the juncture of Eddie’s neck and shoulder to stop the quite honestly embarrassing noises coming out of his mouth, it’s like the planets fucking align. “Rich,” Eddie whines, tightening his hold on the other man, moving one hand to card through his hair again. “Please, move. Fuck sake.”

_Let’s go, Trashmouth_, something in his head snips. _You said you’d blow his goddamn mind. So off you go_.

They’ve the rest of their lives together to take it slow and learn each other’s bodies, and what makes them tick, so it makes him feel slightly better when, a couple of minutes into moving with Eddie, that he can feel the familiar hot coil of pleasure tightening in his core. He leans back, cupping the side of Eddie’s face with one hand. “Eds, baby, this is gonna be over soon. I’m close.”

Eddie lets out some kind of sound that, if Richie was in any right frame of mind, he would absolutely have berated him for it. But Eddie moans, tilting his head back against the pillows. “Me too, just, _fuck_,” the legs around Richie’s waist tighten. “Keep going.”

He isn’t at all sure which one of them comes first. Or whether they do it together. In all the other people he’s slept with, it was always them first, and then Richie would either eventually follow, or finish himself off in the shower. But coming down from the high, trying to catch his breath in the hollow of Eddie’s neck, he frowns. All of the ghosts of past people he’s brought into this apartment need to fuck off, because Eddie is here now. His _person _is here, and he isn’t going anywhere.

Eddie’s hands are so gentle against his back. They swept over his shoulder blades and across the knobs of his spine, up and down and across in no real pattern. When Richie eventually surfaces, he peers down at the other man. A broad smile spreads over his face. “Well?”

Eddie hums. “It was good,” he smiles, before it’s gone completely. “But don’t let it get to your head, please. Your ego could take up this entire room.”

And there it is. Richie rolls away from the other man, but pulling at arms and hands until Eddie is lying against him, curled up. “Eddie Spaghetti, you say such hurtful things,” he grins, “maybe now, that you’re my boo, you can lay the fuck off?”

Eddie snorts. “Yeah no, it’s only going to get worse from now on, asshole.”

* * *

Sleep has never been kind to him. It visited him briefly during the night, but Richie wakes up before the sun does. Richie’s sleeping patterns may be something they’ll have to talk about; he’ll either not sleep at all, and go for days without a proper sleep, or else, he’ll be in a 16-hour long coma with no way of waking up.

Eddie sleeps. Richie spends most of the night watching him – but not in a creepy way, he wants to make clear. One of his hands is at Eddie’s back, gentling him back into sleep whenever he started to wander awake. In the hours where he’s alone with his thoughts, trying to get all of that shit back in order, his fingers run along the cracks of Eddie’s spine. They pause at the raised line of flesh near the middle of his back. And before dread can creep in, Richie goes back to thinking about other things instead.

Watery morning light tries to fight its way into the room through a small slit in the curtains. It crawls its way towards the foot of Richie’s bed. The city never sleeps, so Richie can already hear the hum of traffic and people pass outside. There’s a certain assurance to the noise. It reminds him that the world still ticked on by outside, despite nothing in the space around him moving a muscle.

That is until, on his bedside table, his phone buzzes. It’s an effort: trying to reach for it and his glasses without disturbing the sleeping person currently claiming his entire left side as a pillow. When he finally gets them, he smiles seeing Beverly’s name pop up.

** _ Bev _ ** _: Hey. Ben and I will be in New York for a couple of days for a work thing. Wanna hang?_

Richie’s smile only grows. Adjusting his glasses, Richie taps out a reply. _Sure thing. _A minute passes before he sends another text._ You get to meet my new boyfriend x_

In the time it takes a reply to come through, Richie spends most of it willing his heart to slow down. He doesn’t want the body currently using half of his torso as a pillow to wake up.

** _ Bev _ ** _: Is it Eddie? Tell me it’s Eddie. Otherwise, I’m out ten bucks._

** _ Richie _ ** _: YOU BET ON US_

** _ Bev _ ** _: It’s almost a thirty-year-old bet. I should have put interest on it: could have earned some serious cash..._

The arm slung over his middle moves. A hand lightly smacks into his face. His glasses are knocked down his nose. “Go back to sleep, dickhead,” Eddie mumbles. The words are lost into the skin of Richie’s shoulder. As soon as the assault is done, Eddie’s arm goes back to wrapping tightly around Richie’s middle.

Richie fights not to giggle. _Eddie Kaspbrak: the koala in human skin_. They’ve always been close. The hammock in Ben’s clubhouse comes to mind. Neither of them minded squashing into it. Thinking back, he’s pretty sure it’s like a _Jack, Rose, and the Door_ scenario. There probably was room for them to sit comfortably in it without touching. Richie fixes his glasses and throws his phone on to some free space on the bed.

When Eddie settles, his front completely draped on Richie’s side, Richie takes his chance to free an arm before it’s used as a pillow. His fingers find Eddie’s hair and start to comb through strands at a time. “You drool in your sleep.”

Eddie makes some sort of nose; something entirely lost into Richie’s shoulder. “You snore.”

“No I don’t.”

“Yes, you do.” Eddie moves his face into Richie’s neck. “I’m surprised they didn’t send out a weather alert because of an earthquake.”

“Good to know that you can sleep through an earthquake, apparently,” Richie counters, turning his head to press his nose into Eddie’s hair. “And you don’t deny being a drooler.”

It earns him a hard swat to the chest. “Eddie!” Richie balks.

“You’re literally the worst person I know. I hate you.”

“You _love _me.”

“I really don’t.”

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblrs: yourqueenforayear.tumblr.com | agoodgoddamnshot.tumblr.com
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> Comments & Kudos
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> (The ending kinda tapers off a bit only because this took 2 months to do and it was a fraught time battling bouts of seasonal depression so idk my attention span and creativity kinda bombed)


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